


there’s nothing sweeter than my baby / i’d never want once from the cherry tree

by The_North_Star



Series: Ruthari Week 2020 (Round 2, Baby!) [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, but this orphanage was a good place, i also just like the idea of Runaan having to fight for Ethari's hand in marriage sue me, i've basically given a lot of Indian coded things to him and his childhood home, i've kinda HC Ethari to have been raised in an orphanage, it was a good estate and the nine parents basically treated all 20 or so kids as their own, masala chai or spiced black tea is a major one, perhaps i shall in a future installment, since Ethari is a Hindi name, so i didn't fully expand on that, thank you for your patience, this includes Ethari, when my internal battery isn't at 2 percent, will make things nicer later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25181821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_North_Star/pseuds/The_North_Star
Summary: Written for Ruthari Week 2020 (Round 2, baby!)prompts: 9th - Creatures | --->Nature<---{“You are beautiful because you were nurtured in beauty.”}Ethari takes Runaan to Hawthorngrove, his childhood home. Worldbuilding ahoy! Sort of. It's just one grove village that our favorite buff blacksmith comes from, but still.Will add notes and such later, thank you for your patience.
Relationships: Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Ruthari Week 2020 (Round 2, Baby!) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824304
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	there’s nothing sweeter than my baby / i’d never want once from the cherry tree

“No wonder you came out as beautiful as you did.”  
  
Ethari somehow makes confusion look charming. “What do you mean?”  
  
“This place. Your childhood was here. It’s different, yet peaceful. And beautiful. You were raised here.”  
  
He looks over to his future husband.  
  
“You are beautiful because you were nurtured in beauty.”  
  
Ethari looks away, bashful yet appreciative, even as he approaches to sit next to him.  
  
Hawthorngrove is a border village between Sunfire and Moonshadow territory, and many of the elves here were descendants of Sunfire elves that fled tyrannical rulers generations ago. They brought with them their metalsmithing and art and dances and palate for spices, gifting Moonshadow elves some of their most beloved cultural aspects, even as they were absorbed into the elves of the Moon arcanum.  
  
One of those gifts: tea. The bordergroves all grow various tea leaf varieties, but Runaan’s personal favorites come from Ethari’s people and childhood home; dark, robust, bodied tea, roasted and sometimes flavored with spices that were sweet on their own.  
  
He accompanied Ethari on this trip to visit his parents and the orphanage estate he grew up in, hiding his personal intentions to ask their son’s hand in marriage.While he was occupied elsewhere, Runaan approached them with the proposal.  
  
It resulted in him being challenged to combat, and nearly defeated, by his parents. All nine of them.  
  
As Ethari’s cousins cleaned him up, dressed his wounds, and fixed his hair, he had taken the time to truly see some of his beloved’s childhood home.  
  
Hawthorngrove is named for its hawthorn trees, sprawling and leafy and dotted with flowers this time of year.Black hawthorn trees, the most magical kind, grow all around the village, marking its place in the vast Moonshadow forest.  
  
Some of the trees have their branches woven together to form bridges.Ingenious, strong bridges, held up with layer upon layer of trees so tightly grafted together that they look less like nature’s children, and more like glorious arches carved from stone.  
Near the estate Ethari grew up in, a thick tree had been struck and burned up by lightning. But it had left the tree hollow, and when Runaan had passed by, he saw that a workshop had been built in the hollow, an elf sewing tiny mirrors into a length of reddish-purple cloth.  
  
The tea plants are not trees, so the gentle breezes move them in waves easily. The Moonpool he and Ethari rest along are graced with pink and purple heartblooms, or water roses as they are called here.  
Closer to Sunfire territory, he’s told, are the mountains that truly separate Sunfire from Moonshadow, with snow at the highest points during the cold months.  
  
He will make a trip there with his future husband and the fathers of the orphanage, where they will trade their finest tea, spices, and metalwork to oracles and holy elves, in exchange for their advice, blessings, and fortunes upon their upcoming marriage.  
  
As Runaan is a Moon Druid, he will also need to be marked somewhere upon his body with an additional crescent to his pectoral markings, and discuss an appropriate spousal price as he would be the one to ‘take‘ Ethari from the house of his family to the new home they would build together.  
  
And he could understand the reluctance to leave Hawthorngrove, with all the dark leafy flora and shadowpaws and songbirds and the tree bridges and the elves here that he saw himself in.  
Diligent and focused workers with purpose, with several elves sporting hair in and under headscarves and veils, and weapons being handled with both pride and care.A trio of elves had sheathed daggers bound to their headscarves. He made a mental note to himself to ask Ethari about them.  
Much of these people spent their leisure reading or sparring beneath their regal trees, drinking tea and meditating, their young ones napping on colorful woven mats or nestled along the side of shadowpaws.  
  
Runaan feels Ethari laying his head into the crook of his neck, and he snakes his free arm around his waist so he may embrace him.  
  
Some of the nobles of Moonshadow really are as foolish as they are talkative. Only fools would demean a village like this, to call it ‘simple‘ and ‘meager‘ and ‘somewhat strange’. To even think of questioning the ‘authenticity‘ of the Moon arcanum in these very Moonshadow elves.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s loud, my love.”  
  
The assassin lifts his eyes from nature’s boasting.The dark greens and shade of this serene, sheltered grove explains the smoke and depth of the blacksmith’s brogue.  
  
“There is much to think of, my love. I do not favor one village over another in the entirety of the Moonshadow forest, as I lay my life for all of it and all my people. But to think that your home is seen as lesser by some simply because nature manifests a tad differently here is absolute folly.  
A few see your family and elves like you as simple-minded merely because there is a different presentation of elegant and ornate here. I’ve always known it to be false, but I now have proof.”  
  
Runaan gently cups his face for a kiss.Ethari’s smile is wide against his tea-stained lips.  
  
“You alright with sitting out here for a little longer?”  
  
The Moon washes everything in silver, and everything within him feels right. Good, and natural, and right.  
  
“Yes, my love.”  
  
END  



End file.
